Immigration activist who sought sanctuary arrested in L.A.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - An illegal immigrant who became the face of the immigration reform movement while taking refuge in a Chicago church to avoid deportation has been arrested, the church's pastor said.

Elvira Arellano was arrested before 3 p.m. outside Our Lady Queen of Angels church on L.A.'s historic Olvera Street, where she had been speaking to reporters, said the Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago.

Coleman said he was with Arellano when she was detained, but declined to provide other details.

"We're trying to determine her situation right now," he said.

It was unclear what law enforcement agency had taken Arellano into custody. A call to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was not immediately returned.

"We are sad, but at the same time we are angry," said Javier Rodriguez, a Chicago immigration activist who worked with Arellano. "How dare they arrest this woman?"

The 32-year-old Arellano had arrived in Los Angeles on Saturday, leaving her sanctuary for the first time in a year to campaign for immigration reform.

Her decision to take sanctuary inspired a "New Sanctuary Movement," in which a handful of churches across the country have begun to house illegal immigrants.

Arellano said she was staying in the United States illegally because of her 8-year-old son, Saul, who was born in America and thus a U.S. citizen.

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She has repeatedly called for a stop to immigration raids that break up "mixed families," that is families that have some members with legal status and others who are in the country illegally.

Arellano said Saturday she was not afraid of being taken into custody by immigration agents. She said she planned to take her cause to Washington, D.C.

"From the time I took sanctuary the possibility has existed that they arrest me in the place and time they want," Arellano said in Spanish. "I only have two choices. I either go to my country, Mexico, or stay and keep fighting. I decided to stay and fight."

Arellano came to Washington state illegally in 1997. She was deported to Mexico shortly after, but returned and moved to Illinois in 2000, taking a job cleaning planes at O'Hare International Airport.

She was arrested in 2002 at O'Hare and later convicted of working under a false Social Security number. She was to surrender to authorities last August.

She sought sanctuary at the storefront church on Chicago's West Side Aug. 15, 2006. She had not left the church property until deciding to be driven to Los Angeles, Coleman said.